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June 2014

Visitors in Dallas for the international New Cities Summit found a strange place that mirrored neither the Texas cliche of cattle and oil nor expectations of a bustling new metropolis.

Instead, many found an optimistic, spirited city but also one with empty sidewalks, impossibly wide roads, an unhealthy attachment to their cars and not enough vibrancy for a population of more than 1.2 million. Some also saw a place embracing sustainable development and trying to roll back decades of old-fashioned urban planning. Read more

DETROIT, MI – A development team led by former NBA star Magic Johnson will update the public on plans for the 162-acre, former State Fairgrounds property in northern Detroit at a meeting June 26 at the Northwest Activities Center.

The developers’ original idea for the site along 8 Mile Road and Woodward Avenue near the new Meijer was derided in November 2012 as “big box boring” by community members, who are pushing for some kind of multimodal transit hub to be included. Read more

Anyone who’s seen the area around a variety of Metro stations knows that some are very walkable and some are not. Is there a scientific measure of that? Metro planners crunched the numbers to find out.

Metro rider surveys have shown that most people are willing to walk up to about a half mile to get to a Metro station. Research in other cities also has settled on the half-mile zone. Read more

The opening of the Central Corridor provides an opportunity to celebrate the two LRT lines that now provide service between St. Paul, Minneapolis, and the airport. It’s important to remember that ridership for Hiawatha (Blue Line) has blown past projected ridership for 2020. The Blue Line averaged 31,000 weekday riders in the 3rd quarter of 2013, significantly above the 2020 projections of 24,800 riders. It succeeded because it connected major centers of activity and is surrounded by areas of relative density. Read more

A decade-old burst of downtown development in Cleveland registers loud and clear in the latest national study of urban development patterns in the U.S.

Cleveland now ranks a respectable 10th among the nation’s 30 largest metro areas in a new report that measures how much development is occurring in walkable urban areas, such as the city’s downtown, as opposed to automobile-oriented suburbs. Read more